Simple one or two breath commands

[Stormtide_Leviathan]

Most people on Nalthis don't have a lot of breath. The baseline is that everyone has one breath. I imagine even among those who can't afford to buy breath, there's some variation in this. There's drabs of course, who sold their breath to the returned. But I also have to imagine it's pretty common practice for people to pass on their breath to family or friends when they die and that cultural customs kind of built up around this with it being common practice for people to stick close to their loved ones who are sick. So it probably isn't too unlikely that even every day people have access to two, three, even a dozen breaths if they're lucky that have built up overtime. (Though of course, selling breath to get through hard times probably limits build up and contributes to the rich and returned being able to get them more easily, like we see). All this is to say, it wouldn't be uncommon for people to have access to a couple breaths that they can do stuff with. And everyone, who hasn't sold or otherwise given up their breath, has access to at least one.

So what are some commands you think everyday people might be able to use with their one or two or so breaths that would be useful to them?

One example of a known one-breath command is of course the creation of lifeless, though this is a bit of an odd one since you can't retrieve the breath afterwards. So while it's possible someone might see it worth their while to create a lifeless to have an extra set of hands helping out, it probably isn't the norm.

But what about more average, very simple to commands? One possibility is you might be able to use a breath as a timer. Perhaps you could invest your breath in some object with the command "return after an hour" to let you know when an hour has passed by your breath returning to you. What are some commands you can think of that you might be able to do with only one or two breaths that would be useful for the average working person?

[alder24]

I don't think there would be lots of uses of 1-10 Breaths, because one limiting factor - making Awaken object as human-like as possible. Lifeless are very much as close to life as it is physically possible in shape, size and composition. The other objects not so much. The cost in Breaths decreases with more human-like objects, that are more familiar with being alive. So I think the cheepest one would be a little human dolls made out of your own hair - creepy. Ropes out of your own human hair would also be more valuable, and might be capable of doing some simple commands of poor Nalthian (like up, down, catch etc.). I don't remember what was the cost of Awakening ropes, dolls, clothes and others, so it's hard to tell how much Breath would other commands take. 

Command "return after an hour' won't work - object would need to understand abstract concept of time, which, if possible, would require a lot of Breaths, and they can't just "return" - it's not an action, they could however move or try to make noise - which still would require more Breaths - this is not possible for any poor Nalthian. 

So I don't think there is anything Nalthians can do with single Breath. With 10 there might be, if they made object as life-like as possible, with 50 (1st Heightening) there would be a lot of uses. If the family is commited enough, they can gather all their Breaths and give them to one person, which would be enough for 1st Heightening - but that's like giving away half of your money without wanting them to pay you back. 

Also, while it sounds very resourceful for dying people to gave away their Breaths, I don't think this is happening very often. First of all, most deaths would happen by accident or illness, while people still believe they can recover, and therefore would need their Breaths. Secondly people still are attach to their Breaths, and they might not feel about them as their soul as Idrians do, but still consider them as a important part of themselves, rather than just a useful resource. Thirdly, if this practice was common, then we would see a lot of poor people with 1st Heightenings, or higher, walking around the city, as they would accumulate that number of Breaths through the years - we dont' see them. So while some smart one might do this, it won't be a common sight. So not many would acctually have a use for single Breaths, rather than simple health boost - which isn't widely acceptable fact. 

[Treamayne]

From the annotations to the Warbreaker prologue:

Spoiler

Those two things—making the doll in the shape of a man and using a bit of his own body as a focus—are supposed to create instant resonance in the magic for those reading it. I think it works, too. Unfortunately, there’s a problem with this, much like with the colors above. In later chapters, the characters are generally powerful enough with the magic that they don’t have to make things in human shape or use pieces of their own body as a focus.

If I were to write a sequel to the book (and I just might—more on this later) I’d want to get back to these two aspects of the magic. Talk about them more, maybe have characters who have smaller quantities of Breath, and so need to use these tricks to make their Awakening more powerful.

Anyway, this little scene threw all kinds of problems into the book. Later on, I had to decide if I wanted to force the characters to always make things into the shape of a person before Awakening them. That proved impossible, it was too limiting on the magic and interfered with action sequences. The same was true for using bits of their own flesh as focuses. It just didn’t work.

I toyed with cutting these things from the prologue. (Again, they are artifacts from the short story I wrote, back when Awakening wasn’t fully developed yet.) However, I like the resonance they give, and think they add a lot of depth to the magic system.

So I made them optional. They’re things that you can do to make your Awakenings require fewer Breaths. That lets me have them for resonance, but not talk about them when I don’t need them.

I think any commands that would work <20 breaths would have to rely heavily on the "shape of life" and "body focus" aspects of the magic. Possibly, if a person had accumulated a few breaths (but not enough for the first heightening) and made a doll with body focus (maybe use hair as the doll's wig?) they could possibly get away with some simple commands when Awakening the doll. However, most things you would want such an awakened object to perform would probably be too complex for few breaths (even with the help of the shape and focus) since the prologue also mentions:

Spoiler

If you’ve read the book through, then you know that Vasher’s simple-sounding Command of “Fetch Keys” given to the straw man is incredibly complex. In fact, it’s probably one of the most complicated Commands given to any Awakened object in the entire book. It’s kind of cool to me that Vasher uses it here, showing off incredible mastery of the magic, before anyone reading will even realize how much skill saying those two words correctly really takes.

It's too bad we don't know how many breaths that command used on the straw man to estimate how much less breath it might take on a well crafted doll using a similar focus.

Also, from Ch 46, we have:

Spoiler

“You mean the Commands?” Vivenna asked.

“Right,” Vasher said. “As you’ve seen, most basic Commands work easily. If the Command is something the object could do, and you state it in a simple way, the Command will usually work.”

“I tried some simple Commands,” she said. “On the rope. They didn’t work.”

“Those may have sounded simple, but they weren’t. Simple Commands are only two words long. Grab something. Hold something. Move up. Move down. Twist around. Even some two-word Commands can be more complicated, and it takes practice visualizing—or, well, imagining. Well, using your mind to—”

“I understand that part,” she said. “Like flexing a muscle.”

He nodded. “The Command ‘Protect me,’ though only two words, is extremely complicated. So are others, like Fetch something. You have to give the right impulse to the object. This area is where you really begin to understand how little we know. There are probably thousands of Commands we don’t know. The more words you add, the more complicated the mental component becomes, which is why discovering a new Command can take years of study.”

So, possibly a doll with body focus could make use of the "Grab something" and "Hold something" type of simple commands with 10 or less breaths. I could see a craftsman using such a construct to help hold tools while doing a job, for example.

[cometaryorbit]

The memory altering command Vasher teaches the priest's daughter works with one Breath, and doesn't use it up.

[alder24]

16 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

The memory altering command Vasher teaches the priest's daughter works with one Breath, and doesn't use it up.

The difference is, you Awakening "yourself", or using it to store your memory

RoW spoiler

Spoiler

like Hoid does, and he'd lived for more than 10000 years and has a little bit more than 200 Breaths, so one Breath can store approximately more than 50 years of memories.

So a single Breath can be useful for memorizing. But other than this, there isn't much use for one Breath. Vasher's little straw man costs 25 Breaths (he had around 50 in prologe and half were used on this), and it is the simplest multitasking tool. Maybe you can Awaken it for less than 25 by using a simpler command, like "stand up", but this is just useless. Fetching keys was a complicated command afterall.

However I was wondering, Mistborn and RoW spoilers

Spoiler

If you can store memories in Breath, can you store other feruchemical attributes? Essentially mental ones like mental speed or wakefulness? We know magic systems can be replicated by other magic systems. This would mean that every Nalthian is a weak feruchemist. But this would work even worse than Feruchemy, as you can't recover more attributes at once. You're storing 50% of your mental speed in Breaths, and you live with 50% mental speed remaining. Then you can take 10% from Breaths back and you have 60% now, or recover it all and go back to 100%. You can never exceed 100%, and if you put something in Breaths, you live without it until you take it back. For most feruchemical attributes it has no use other than deceiving people.

 

[Treamayne]

On 1/7/2023 at 0:23 AM, Stormtide_Leviathan said:

So what are some commands you think everyday people might be able to use with their one or two or so breaths that would be useful to them?

@Stormtide_Leviathan

I also found this WoB on one-breath commands (well, annotation/WoB)

Spoiler

Vivenna Hides Her Breath in a Shawl

This has been possible from the beginning, and if Denth had truly been on her side, he would have admitted that there’s a way she could get rid of her Breaths. What she would need to do is Awaken something with a one-Breath Command. There are some. They don’t do much, but you can Awaken a very tiny scrap of cloth tied into the shape of a person with a very simple Command. That takes one Breath.

On 1/14/2023 at 3:39 PM, alder24 said:

However I was wondering, Mistborn and RoW spoilers

  Hide contents

If you can store memories in Breath, can you store other feruchemical attributes? Essentially mental ones like mental speed or wakefulness? We know magic systems can be replicated by other magic systems. This would mean that every Nalthian is a weak feruchemist. But this would work even worse than Feruchemy, as you can't recover more attributes at once. You're storing 50% of your mental speed in Breaths, and you live with 50% mental speed remaining. Then you can take 10% from Breaths back and you have 60% now, or recover it all and go back to 100%. You can never exceed 100%, and if you put something in Breaths, you live without it until you take it back. For most feruchemical attributes it has no use other than deceiving people.

 

This was partially discussed over in the Cosmere Discussion Forum here. Mistborn Spoiler

Spoiler

Consider if you stored, for example, Physical Speed in a breath, then used that breath to awaken - could you make a faster moving awakened object while it uses the breath with that attribute?

 

Edited January 22, 2023 by Treamayne
WoB Ref

[cometaryorbit]

On 1/14/2023 at 2:39 PM, alder24 said:

So a single Breath can be useful for memorizing. But other than this, there isn't much use for one Breath.

From what we've seen so far, sure. I just wonder if the memory thing is unique to memories, or if there's other self-alteration possible. Breath gives a general boost to your immune system, vividness of sensory perception, mood, and various other things. Could someone who knew what they were doing redirect all that boost to one function (e.g. extra immune system boost, but drop to a Drab's mood effects and sensory vividness)?

[+robardin he/him]

I never thought about a Baseline Nalthian trying to do something with the one Breath they're Endowed with at birth, other than to sell it to become a drab with the "My Breath to yours" Command.

But if Awakening (and recovering) that single Breath were not really feasible or effective, as you point out, they could still make a Lifeless. But just the one time.

What might make someone do that, and what Command would they give such a Lifeless? ... Could someone theoretically make themself a Lifeless at the moment they died?

[alder24]

7 minutes ago, robardin said:

I never thought about a Baseline Nalthian trying to do something with the one Breath they're Endowed with at birth, other than to sell it to become a drab with the "My Breath to yours" Command.

But if Awakening (and recovering) that single Breath were not really feasible or effective, as you point out, they could still make a Lifeless. But just the one time.

What might make someone do that, and what Command would they give such a Lifeless? ... Could someone theoretically make themself a Lifeless at the moment they died?

You can give whatever command you want to Lifeless and change it whenever you want. That's actually very good use of a single Breath, but I think acquiring a corpse and alcohol for it might be expensive. But making Lifeless out of animals would cut the cost significantly, some ox or horse would be very useful for work and transportation.

I doubt you could make yourself into a Lifeless. Your soul is still attached to your body, even for some short time after death, so Breath would not "stick" to it. Investiture of your soul would compete with the Breath and win.

[+robardin he/him]

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

You can give whatever command you want to Lifeless and change it whenever you want. That's actually very good use of a single Breath, but I think acquiring a corpse and alcohol for it might be expensive. But making Lifeless out of animals would cut the cost significantly, some ox or horse would be very useful for work and transportation.

I doubt you could make yourself into a Lifeless. Your soul is still attached to your body, even for some short time after death, so Breath would not "stick" to it. Investiture of your soul would compete with the Breath and win.

How about a case of identical twins, where one twin dies and the other one uses their sole Breath to make his sibling a Lifeless? Or if the dying twin manages to give their one Breath to their sibling first, so the survivor doesn't even end up a Drab.

A Lifeless who does not trigger life sense, but can visually pass for you and can be given a Command to do something while you're not around... Could be uniquely useful.

Edited January 26, 2023 by robardin

[alder24]

10 minutes ago, robardin said:

How about a case of identical twins, where one twin dies and the other one uses his sole Breath to make his sibling a Lifeless? Or if the dying twin manages to give their one Breath to their sibling first, so the survivor doesn't even end up a Drab.

A Lifeless who does not trigger life sense, but can visually pass for you and can be given a Command to do something while you're not around... Could be uniquely useful.

Yes, you can do it, you can do it with any body you get. But if you want that Lifeless to last longer, you need ichor-alcohol in his blood vessels, which also reduces the cost of Awakening, so alcohol is necessary for making Lifeless with one Breath. Alcohol and preperation of the body would still cost. I don't know how much, some people can afford Lifeless, so the middle class probably could buy one, especially when body is provided.

Lifeless can't speak, and is grey, so nobody would mistake him for you anyway.

Using your one Breath to make a Lifeless is probably the best use of it. However that Lifeless can only last several years, require regular maintenance, and after years of obtaining damage and body wearing off, it would require another Breath to keep it going.

[Monk of Dakhor]

This may be a bit morbid, but could you potentially make a doll entirely of human materials and make that use less breaths, or would that make a lifeless?